We get a dev-room at Fosdem after all. Emergency Call for Papers!

Sat Jan 26 17:44:21 GMT 2013

Hi Wendy,

TPF posted a couple of days ago that it has £100,000 (or dollars or
whatever) to distribute, so resources isn't the problem.

A couple of days ago Perl's official presence at Fosdem was minimal. I
assume you didn't try very hard to get sponsorship because there was very
little to sponsor.

Yesterday things changed and you suddenly needed half a dozen or a dozen
good quality speakers to drop everything and head to Brussels at seven days
notice.

One of those days has now gone. How are you getting on?

I mentioned funding from TPF because I thought the speakers might require
more funding than usual. They can't get cheap flights at short notice, they
can't combine it with a business trip at short notice, they can't combine it
with a family holiday at short notice.

I assumed that you wouldn't be able to offer funding until you had
sponsorship.

I thought that if TPF put up £5000 immediately then that would solve the
problem. Then if commercial sponsors come forward you can return some or all
of the money.

I've never been to Fosdem, but it looks important.

All the best.

Duncan

-----Original Message-----
From: london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org
[mailto:london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org] On Behalf Of Wendy G.A. van Dijk
Sent: 26 January 2013 14:46
To: London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers
Subject: RE: We get a dev-room at Fosdem after all. Emergency Call for
Papers!

Hi Duncan,

I salute you for this!  Well done, thank you for your support.
And I realise your question about Fosdem was a genuine question.
The answer I gave was not the right one.
I think the only right answer is:

The Perl community itself is the only right organisation to organise events
like YAPC, workshops, hackathons, PM meetings, presence at Oscon and Fosdem.
Organisations like TPF, YEF YAPC Europe Foundation, EPO Enlightened Perl
Organisation, SPPN Dutch Foundation for Perl Promotion, etc, are mostly here
to assist.  Bring people together, and if needed, support financially.
Mention things on websites, press releases.  Try to mediate in case of
arguments.

But TPF, YEF, EPO and SPPN have not enough people to organise or coordinate
workshops or conferences themselves.

This is not meant patronising.  This is also a statement for many other
people who have said the same as you did, I have heard and read ithis
question before.

Kind regards,
Wendy van dijk

At 03:05 PM 1/26/2013, Duncan Garland wrote:
 >Hi Leo,
 >
 >I ran a workshop at this year's LPW.
 >
 >I got the company I work for to sponsor LPW.
 >
 >All the sponsorship money went to LPW, I paid my own expenses.
 >
 >I'll know next week whether I've succeeded in getting some sponsorship for
>the QA Hackathon.
 >
 >I've been to 6 of the 9 LPWs. The last 5 plus one a couple of years before
>that.
 >
 >I'm active in both London PM and Southampton PM.
 >
 >Don't patronise me.
 >
 >Duncan
 >
 >-----Original Message-----
 >From: london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org
 >[mailto:london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org] On Behalf Of Leo Lapworth
 >Sent: 26 January 2013 12:06
 >To: London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers
 >Subject: Re: We get a dev-room at Fosdem after all. Emergency Call for
>Papers!
 >
 >Hi Duncan,
 >
 >Please contact the TPF and let them know how many hours a week you are
able  >to commit to helping co-ordinate this sort of thing.
 >
 >Leo
 >
 >
 >
 >On 26 Jan 2013, at 11:25, Duncan Garland <duncan.garland at ntlworld.com>
 >wrote:
 >
 >> Hi,
 >>
 >> Isn't this something TPF should get behind?
 >>
 >> The Perl Community organises good conferences but they tend to be for
>> quite small audiences. I've been told that YAPC Tokyo is the biggest  >>
with roughly  >> 800 attendees and the next biggest ones are grouped around
the 300 mark.
 >>
 >> Fosdem claims to attract 5000.
 >>
 >> We always talk about breaking out of the echo chamber, but never seem
>> sure about how to do it. Isn't this an important opportunity?
 >>
 >> Shouldn't TPF commit to sponsoring this today and then launch a drive
>> to find a commercial sponsor to reimburse TPF?
 >>
 >> (Perl still isn't listed on https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/ as  >>
having a developer room.)  >>  >> Regards  >>  >> Duncan  >>  >>
-----Original Message-----  >> From: london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org  >>
[mailto:london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org] On Behalf Of Wendy G.A. van  >>
Dijk  >> Sent: 25 January 2013 20:41  >> To: london.pm at london.pm.org  >>
Subject: We get a dev-room at Fosdem after all. Emergency Call for Papers!
 >>
 >> Hello all,
 >> We know it is late, but we still have to try to make this work.
 >> Maybe to save the honour and pride of Perl!  :-) Would you like to  >>
give a presentation in Brussels, please send me and/or Claudio a proposal.
 >> Today or tomorrow please.
 >> Thanks!
 >> Kind regards,
 >> Wendy van Dijk
 >>
 >> ========
 >>
 >> Dear Perl Mongers,
 >>
 >> I have to make this short and simple.
 >> Therefore most of this email is copied from last year's Call for
Speakers.
 >>
 >> What?  Fosdem, Brussels, 2 & 3 february 2013 https://fosdem.org/2013/
>>  >> Where? Free University Brussels, Campus Solbosh:
 >> https://fosdem.org/2013/practical/transportation/
 >>
 >> Why so late?
 >> Because our dev-room request was denied at first.
 >> They gave it to another programming language community.
 >> Now another community could not fill their dev-room.
 >> We are Perl, so we jumped in and we asked for this.
 >> We got it.  Now we have to fill it.
 >>
 >> So be quick and send in your presentation proposal.
 >>
 >> To:
 >> Claudio Ramirez (nxadm, email: padre.claudio at apt-get.be) and Wendy
>> van Dijk (email: nl.pm at wendy.org).
 >>
 >> Thank you.  Hope to meet you all in Brussels.
 >>
 >>
 >> __________________________________________________
 >>
 >> Copied and adapted from last year's Call for Speakers:
 >>
 >>
 >> Please forward to your Perl contacts.
 >>
 >> __________________________________________________
 >>
 >>
 >> Taking place in the beautiful city of Brussels (Belgium), FOSDEM is  >>
the biggest free and non-commercial European event organized by and  >> for
the community. Its goal is to provide Free and Open Source  >> developers a
place to meet (see http://fosdem.org/2013/).
 >>
 >> Over the last years the Perl community had an increasing presence at
>FOSDEM.
 >> Over the last two years we managed to have both a booth and a  >>
dev-room. We collected an impressive positive return and wish to renew the
>experience.
 >>
 >> Our dev-room request for this upcoming edition (2013) was at first  >>
rejected, in favor of another programming language community.
 >> So we would only have a booth.  But another open source community  >>
could not fill their dev-room and we hastily requested it for the
>Perl-community.
 >> Yesterday we got approval.
 >>
 >> The stand request is approved some time ago.  The stand will be open  >>
throughout the weekend. The dev-room event will take place Saturday,  >>
February 2nd 2013 , between 11:00 and 19:00, in room AW.126.
 >> The room itself has 75 seats, WIFI and a VGA projector.
 >>
 >> This environment, being a university classroom with raised seats,  >>
lends itself perfectly for talks. This is a wonderful opportunity to  >>
present your Perl project -big and small- or talk about subjects you  >>
care about. We are looking for a variety of subjects on all levels:
 >> starter and advanced, generic and specialized, core internals and  >>
CPAN. We have 8 hours time, so we have the flexibility of using  >>
different time  >> formats: e.g. talks of 20 minutes, more classic talks of
40 minutes or  >> longer (although we learned from experience that longer
talks should  >> be split into slices of 20 or 40 minutes).
 >>
 >> Please don't doubt to send a proposal (information about yourself,  >>
subject, short description and time needed). If you have several  >>
subjects you are enthusiastic to talk about please send alternative  >>
proposals. In the case more than one talk is not selected, your  >> proposal
will help us when putting the schedule together and even have  >backup talks
in case someone cancels.
 >> Also mention your time constraints (if any).
 >>
 >> Please send your talk proposal by e-mail to the address below as soon
>> as you read this.  You will receive an answer within 2 days.
 >> We will submit a definitive schedule on Sunday 2013-01-27 to the  >>
FOSDEM organizers.
 >>
 >> Please forward / distribute this call as wide as possible (certainly  >>
to your local mongers).
 >>
 >> Claudio Ramirez (nxadm, email: padre.claudio at apt-get.be) and Wendy
>> van Dijk (email: nl.pm at wendy.org).
 >>
 >> NB1: This is a community event without sponsoring. We don't have the  >>
means to pay for your trip and time. If you want to sponsor part of  >> the
event, please feel free to contact us.
 >>
 >> NB2: We'll also appreciate volunteers, booth and dev-room. Please tell
>> us your availabilities so we can also prepare a planning for this.
 >>
 >>
 >>